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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 33 of 58 15 February 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Understanding your own language is not useless. Especially when learning other languages. Cristina, how did you learn Spanish, french and English without learning their grammar? I agree that grammar is a tool, not a goal, but it is a necessary tool. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 34 of 58 15 February 2012 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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@Mark: I learned Spanish and French through immersion, hence no need for grammar. English I
theoretically learned at school, including a little grammar, but I learned 80% of my English from TV, and therefore did not see much need for it there either. German grammar has been necessary, since that is a language I have learned almost entirely at school, but even there I sort of get by because German is similar to Norwegian, so even if I constantly mess up the grammar, I am readily understood. In Russian I feel like a cross between a juggler who must juggle 18 balls at the same time - five of them being fire balls - and one of those cliff divers in Acapulco who takes a nose dive from a 20 meter height. I absolutely love Russian, but doing that is all the adrenalin kick my body craves :-) No need to go bungy jumping. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 35 of 58 16 February 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Language. Grammar. Do you guys really think these are separate things? ;)
Even as an adult, I wouldn't have the guts to say that someone who pronounces the h in "an hour" knows so much about English grammar. OK, maybe we can go technical about distinguishing grammar, phonetics, etc. but I think the relevant point here is explicit teaching of formal aspects of the language ("formalism" from now on) vs spontaneously picking it up. Why should anyone learn the formalism of a language [s]he already uses perfectly? Good question, but I have a better one: how do we know you use it perfectly in the first place? Is there an 'answer key' to check your knowledge against? For one, there's no such thing as perfect knowledge of a language. That would imply being able to understand and otherwise appropriately handle any piece ever produced in the language, which is simply impossible. Being less strict, knowledge of a language is judged basically by its adherence to conventional use. And what are grammars (formalisms in general) but that precisely? Maybe in the beginning every grammar was merely an attempt to formalize and systematize 'this use' of this language by some whacky guys, but shortly thereafter every single one of them becomes a vehicle for the stabilization of the language around that formalized, standardized form, which, as despicable and vile as many can think it is, is nonetheless inescapable in the language evolution from the very first moment such a formalism is produced. Except for maybe a few, there's no modern language without formalism, exactly as there's no formalism without language. Keeping that in mind, there's always some space for variability, but I don't think someone whose language is judged 'good' can be very removed from the formalism. In the same vein I don't think someone who followed the formalism could produce language that's judged 'not good', if these could be tested independently. Does it make a lot of sense to talk about learning the language first and then its grammar, or the other way around? I think it's just plain impossible. How many adults learned some foreign grammar and then the language? None. How many children learned the language 'without grammar'? You may think 'plenty of them' but that's not true. I know of nobody whose parents (or peers in the immersion environment!) didn't correct and continuously teach how to speak 'properly'. How spontaneous is that? That, whether you like it or not, is teaching the formalism, with its rules and exceptions, exactly as covered by the big books, albeit usually in a less complete or exhaustive form, and without the fancy words, but with the same contents at heart. If you think about it, we're all explicitly taught the formalism of our languages at some level; the only difference is how much of it is done at school, and how open we are and how much of a fuss we make about it. WRT to how good an idea it is, to each their own, but I think we can learn a bit of the outcome: I went through intense, systematic practice of verb conjugation (the 'difficult' stuff for 9yos) and so much else when I was 8. I had already a good grasp of most of it, but my knowledge of the system only got better and more solid, and it sure sped up. The 'big words' that everybody seems to mistake for the real formalism were still some 6 or 7 years away, and even so I studied my own language at school while I was learning it, and I regard that as beneficial as studying maths or history at an early age, if not more. Mapk apparently went through a similar experience. Others vary from a mild inability to approach a new language in a fast, systematic fashion, or make it useful, to the rather tragic cases cited by PillowRock. Does anybody really want that? Unless I've missed it somehow, the level of criticism against formal study of the language at school is way above that of any other subject I can think of. To me this would point to the need of developing this same habit independently for all the relevant areas, because from my personal experience everywhere, it only brings benefits in every one of them. -- Every time I face something that forces me to learn or develop new paradigms I only wish I had been taught about it at school because it'd make it so much easier in the present. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4700 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 36 of 58 16 February 2012 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
In my experience it doesn't. Knowing the grammar rules does not translate to the ability to actually use them. And it's not just my experience.
Can you explain why you think so? Many people in my country say this too, but I don't understand it. Why should be your L1 grammar relevant at all?
From the linguitic point of view, all dialects are equally correct. How do you know that the prescriptive rules you learn are correct?
You misunderstood it. Of course you have to learn grammar. We are talking about the ability to use grammar vs. academic knowledge about grammar. They are not the same thing.
In your native language? Why?? Do you have some language disorder or learning disability? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 37 of 58 16 February 2012 at 5:15am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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You can understand explanations better if you know the grammar of your own language.
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| PillowRock Groupie United States Joined 4735 days ago 87 posts - 151 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 38 of 58 16 February 2012 at 5:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
If you've already studied the grammar of your native language before starting starting to study any L2, it will mean that you have already acquired a vocabulary for talking about (or reading about) grammar. If you haven't already learned what adverbs, indirect objects, etc. are through your own language then you'll have spend L2 study time learning those concepts. That extra material being mixed in with your language learning can't help but slow down your progress.
That may well be true for discussions int the home or among friends. However, for technical and academic writing the language usage must "follow the rules" to a degree sufficient to ensure precise and unambiguous communication. Also, business interactions need to be sufficiently "proper" (whatever that means in a given language and culture) so as to avoid driving away business by giving the impression of being unprofessional and / or uneducated. There's no reason that one necessarily needs to stop saying things like "He be learnin' me to talk gooder" with family and friends. However, if one hopes for much chance of economic upward mobility, it would behoove them to learn to use the "standard" grammar rules as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 39 of 58 16 February 2012 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
As I grew I found I understood everything better, because of the extra structure. Functional knowledge of grammar is to language what anatomy is for a martial artist. Can you get by without it? Sure, but it just makes everything so much easier that if you learn it you'll never want to go back.
I can tell you it's the other way around, and again, knowing grammar and knowing grammatical terminology are not the same thing. Maybe if I had had the same kind of grammar instruction many here seem to think of when they hear 'grammar', I'd hate it. Fortunately, that's not the case. How much grammatical terminology do you think I knew when I was 8? Little more, if anything, than the eight (or whatever :) parts of speech and gender and number, because we didn't need to refer to anything finer at that time. What we needed to know was there was some underlying structure to language, how it worked, and practice, and that's what we got. Sure it took some time to grasp it, but I can't tell you how much more was saved (not to speak about the gain in quality) just in composing texts alone, because you could structure things on your own according to the rules instead of asking or taking your chances just to discover that something wasn't 'proper'. Grammar (or orthography, or just about anything) isn't something you learn in a single block at some given point; it is made of a zillion things that help you along the way if learned at the right time. Time for fancy labels like 'direct object' didn't come until maybe 5 years later, way after we had started any L2, and I clearly remember how everything made so much sense because in my mind it was all like 'take this, use those (L2) words instead, and shuffle around like this'. I had no words for most of the grammar work I did, but it let me learn and compose almost as effortless and effectively as in my L1 (so it seemed to me), even if I had no significant L2 practice until at least another 5 years later (when I woke to the difference between L1 and L2 in reality). Of course, grammar similarity went a long way -- had my L2 been Japanese I guess I'd had a much harder time trying to apply grammar to make heads or tails of it. Anything that adds structure to your knowledge speeds you up. It will just add to it and provide you alternate ways to think about the subject and understand it better and to a deeper level, provided you are ready to take on it --> Did my partners benefit from grammar in any language? Not much. Then again, most of my partners didn't benefit much from most of what we were taught beyond reading and writing and basic maths while I nurtured on everything. Does it mean that teaching grammar is a waste? Different school systems all around the world exhibit similar results: most people are just not ready to connect most of what they are taught at school to the real world, and anything beyond the basics is wasted. The moral I take from this isn't directly related to grammar -- it is nobody should be kept in school against their will beyond a certain point. Only one thing is achieved doing so: get them to hate formal instruction and never want to get back, and this will only handicap them even more in the long run. Drop outs who want to get back in again may have missed some windows, but I think instruction efforts are better spent on those who want to learn.
Technical and academic writing? Business? Come on. Is there any field where precise and unambiguous communication is not better? Sorry, but I don't see any value in keeping any standard of communication if I have access to another that lets me reach the same people, and some more. That's why I learn languages in the first place: to be able to communicate effectively with more people. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 40 of 58 16 February 2012 at 9:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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I forgot a very important thing. Grammar in your own language is needed in order to write
correctly. For example, in French: mot/mots, bleu/bleue. In Russian: ночь - луч, деревне - деревни. In English: their/there. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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